[MUL] Hades - "Out of Tartarus" by Fantastic Ike

Started by Zeta, October 20, 2021, 10:28:24 AM

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Zeta

Submission Information:

Series: Other
Game: Hades
Console: Multiplatform
Title: Out of Tartarus
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Fantastic Ike

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Bloop

Ah I remember you asking about the time signature of this on discord, very cool track and nice sheet too!
About the time signature, I don't know if you considered this or not, but I personally find it hard to hear the accents of the sixth 8th in every second bar and the second 8th of every third bar as syncopations (off-beat accents) instead of just full accents. The percussion part doesn't really help either, as they have the exact same accents. This is how I hear it:
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Technically the 8/8 could be written as 4/4 and the 6/8 should be written as 3/4, but it may be a bit easier to keep everything in 8ths.
Considering the beeps that come in at m17, another way to write it would be like this:
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The beeps are in a kind of 4/4 rhythm (like in bar 1). Bar 2 would be the same, except the last 8th gets 'stolen' and replaced with the 3/4 bar that comes afterwards. The second 8th of the 7/8 bar is now a syncopated accent, but this is a bit more natural in two bars of 4/4 (if it were that)

Anyway, if you personally do hear it as a very clear 7/8, I can work with that too: just wanted to show some other viewpoints!
Onto the actual comments:
-There are quite a lot of places where stuff touches each other. Most notably the accents with the slurs every first bar and the slurs, ties and accents on page 4. Make sure all of this doesn't touch each other. You can move the accents a bit up or down so they won't touch the slurs. On page 4 you could fix it by widening the staff space and flipping the slur, so it goes under the notes instead of over (and make sure the accents won't touch these slurs too :p). In measures 46 and 50 there are also quarter rests in layer 2 that touch the notes in layer 1, those rests should be lowered a bit.
-m1-4: Maybe you could make this an octave tremolo instead of a single note (like this). Octave tremolos usually work a bit better on piano, and are easier to control dynamically than single notes (because you don't have to repeat the same key as fast).
-m5: Dynamically this is a bit louder and active than the drone, so maybe you could put this in mf? (and consequently, m31 in f probably)
-m18-19 and similar places: You can remove the tie after beat 7 and first note of m19 in the R.H.: staccato means "play this note shortly", so you don't need to give it an exact duration. If you go with one of my time signature changes, this will probably fix itself, but remember it for other times too!
-m29-30 and similar places: The half rests here are shorter in the original, the first one should be three 8ths long and the second one two 8ths:
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You could also write it as 6/8 and 5/8 if you want the barline between the two 3-note patterns. If you go with that, also add a courtesy accidental to the first Dn in m30 :p
-m31-44: You could move the upper octave to a second layer in the R.H. too, so the L.H. doesn't have to jump as much. The R.H. has enough space and time to play the little beeps you currently have in the R.H.
-m31: The mf (or f if you go with that) should be centered under the first note and between the two staves.
-m51: I hear the Bn at beat 4.5 hear as a Bb sliding to Bn on beat 1 the next bar. The slide doesn't really work on piano though, which would make the Bn on beat 1 a bit more accentuated than you might want, so you could also do a grace note Bb to Bn on beat 4.5 possibly?
-m52: Are the Ab's here a case of "arranger's freedom"? I hear the Ab as a whole note starting on beat 1, although yours is a bit easier to play.
-m53-60: You should recheck the notes of the riff here, there's something else going on than what you have.
-m69-80: The You cannot view this attachment.'s you have here are nearly unplayable by most people who don't have the surname Rachmaninoff, but there's something else going on in the bass anyway. I'd suggest something like this:
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The top notes of the dyads and the G's are what the bass is doing, and the guitar keeps playing the D's instead of switching up the 5ths. For m77-80 I'd do something like this:
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Another thing here is that I don't really feel like the first and second endings are that necessary, as you're just saving 1 system of space (same on page 14 btw). If you wanna save some systems, you could move some of the 2-measure figures like m29-30 to the system above. It's a bit less spacious than normal but it's not too bad (not accounted for the different time signatures yet):
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If you really wanna keep the first and second endings, you should move them up a bit so they don't touch the ties in the R.H.
-m86 and 89: The Db and C's should be Eb and Dn's, respectively
-m92: The bass does something different the second time in this measure: it goes to G and A instead of Eb and F, like in m98. Instead of repeating m87-92, you should repeat m93-98.
-m110: You have the F written out here in beat 3 in layer 2 in the R.H., but in previous iterations an octave lower you have a quarter rest. I may actually prefer the F written out, so it's clear it's part of both the riff and the spooky synth, but either way you should be consistent.
-m115-119: I think this is what's going on rhythmically:
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-m120-m159: heck yeah love me some progmetal
You can switch some of the top octaves of the L.H. to the R.H. for playability:
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-m168: I hear the R.H. G an octave higher. Also, the riff does something different here too, but it's the same as in m53-60.
-m184-195: Some of the same points as in m69-80 apply here too, though you may want to take some other choices in the L.H. pattern because of the metal-ness. Maybe something like this?:
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-m201 and 204: Again, Db and C's should be Eb and Dn's.
-m202-206: The top G in the R.H. is a bit too stretchy to play with the D-G dyad in the second layer. I'd recommend moving the D up an octave. Also, raise the rests a bit so they don't touch the second layer dyads and ties.
-m207: The bottom Eb's and F's should be G's and A's.
-m224-226: This should be the same rhythmically as what happened in m115-117.
-m227-229: I'd write these last bars as just one bar with a fermate, as the two extra bars don't really add much extra information about how long you should let the chord ring. Also, you could move the D to the R.H. and add a lower octave G to the L.H., as the bass goes to that lower octave. You have that G everywhere else during the progmetal part anyway.
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That was a lot, damn. There's a lot that applies to multiple parts of your sheet, so make sure similar looking parts get fixed similarly. Don't let the long post demotivate you: I think you did a really good job on this sheet! The arrangement itself is (mostly) fine, it's pretty much just a lot of formatting and a few wrong notes that appear more often than once. I hope my comments will help!

Fantastic Ike

Oof, that was a lot to fix haha, I think I got it all though.

Quote-m52: Are the Ab's here a case of "arranger's freedom"? I hear the Ab as a whole note starting on beat 1, although yours is a bit easier to play.
I did originally have a whole note, but it didn't sound as good and looked awkward to play, so I thought it would be better served accenting the notes. So yeah, it is arranger's freedom essentially, but if it's not proper I'll fix it.

Anyway thanks for the feedback!

Bloop

Nice work on going through all of that! Just a few more details:

-The tremolo in bar 1-4 is still the same, though you did change the one in 121.
-m30 (and similar places): Though not obligatory, you could add a courtesy accidental to the Dn here as it's right next to the Db in the previous measure.
-m46 (and similar places): Technically the accent on beat 3 in the R.H. should go below the bar right? It doesn't really matter for the performance though.
-m51 (and similar places): I meant adding the grace note to beat 4.5 of this bar, not the first beat of the following bar:
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Also, just to be sure, did you mean for the G in layer 1 to be accented as well?
-m53 and 56: The accent is touching the slur here
-m61: I see you added a pedal marking here, good idea! The only thing is that it is quite long: on keyboards/electric pianos the tones usually die out earlier than on acoustic pianos, so on acoustic pianos this might get very muddy after a few bars. I'd suggest re-pedaling every 2 bars (you could do m61-64 as a 4 bar pedal though, as notes from bar 61-62 won't clash with 63-64)
-m93 and 99: You don't really need the dotted half rest in layer 1, having nothing above the held G is good enough
-m178: Maybe you could add the pedal lines in this part too, as it's pretty much the same idea as m61
-m216-229: There are some accents that are still touching the slurs in this part (mostly in the L.H.), and the placement of the accents in the R.H. are a bit inconsistent. Make sure all rests on the 3rd beat of every first bar in a system is on pretty much the same place!

Fantastic Ike


Bloop

Awesome! There's still some more (even smaller) details, but that should be all from me:

-m44, 147, 177: The Dn in the right hand should have a courtesy accidental too, not just the L.H.
-m46 and similar: The accent here on beat 3 touches the stem in this specific bars, and in others like this (m50, 106, 110, 163, 217,  221) it's a bit too far left. It should look like you have in m167.
-m51, 111, 168, 222: With the accent in layer 1 I meant the top layer, not the bottom one. You have accents in the guitar riff part, but not in the spooky synth, so I was wondering if you consciously added the accent in the spooky synth or not. I think it should be an accent below the bottom G and no accent above the upper G.
Also, the grace notes here should have slurs added as well, like in my example pic. Mostly because this is also a slide/hammer on figure like you did with most other slurs.

Fantastic Ike


Bloop

Very nice work! For the smallest of details: the grace notes in the L.H. don't have slurs yet :p I'll approve it now anyway, but don't forget to add those in!

Fantastic Ike


Static

#10
This looks really good! But I have some details to go over:
  • For m1-4, I don't think playing a 2-note tremolo is going to be that taxing for the player if it's only for 12 bars. I'd put repeat bars around m1-4, and add in a note at the end saying "optional: play 3x" or similar. For the crescendo, you can remove the hairpin and just put in text saying "gradually crescendo through repeats" or similar.
  • You don't need the beat division numbers since the beaming tells the reader the same thing, but I guess it doesn't hurt to be as clear as possible. Yeah, I guess leave those in.
  • For all text, the font should be Times New Roman to match the rest of the text on the sheet. Dynamic-related text (like the aforementioned crescendo direction) should be italicized; other stuff doesn't necessarily need to be but it doesn't matter.
  • Single notes are fine for the guitar part, but as the piece builds, consider maybe adding some 5ths above the low Gs, especially m122+ (when the distorted guitars come in). Up to you though.
  • m53-57/170-174 LH: Have you tried playing this section on a keyboard/piano? It's not impossible to play with the LH, but I think it would be easier of those upper accented notes were put in the RH - they're well within an octave range of that high G.
  • m85-103 RH: Those long held notes are played as a power chord in the original (i.e. an added 5th).
  • m103/213-214 LH: A courtesy natural on the A would be nice, since these are the only places in the entire sheet with An instead of Ab.
  • m99 LH: This measure should be Eb-D-D.
  • m112/223 RH: The Ab in the vocal melody sounds like it's held for the measure, not playing with the guitar part.
  • m121 LH: There's an additional D in this tremolo here.
  • m175-177: This goes D-Eb-Eb-F.
  • m202-206 RH: Would probably look better in bass clef.
  • m232: Since this is a fermata anyway, there's not much reason to change time signatures here.
  • m28-30 and similar: (Save this for last because it will affect the measure numbers; all my feedback above uses the current numbers) Maybe it's just me, but I hear the 8th notes in m29, etc. as starting on the downbeat of a measure, rather than a pickup. Instead of 6/8+6/8+5/8, maybe 9/8+8/8 would work better.

Fantastic Ike

Fixed, hope that should be everything. As fun of a piece as it is, it's very vexing to edit haha

Static

Looks good mostly
  • The "gradually crescendo [...]" text should also be in Times New Roman.
  • m51-55, 165-169: An unintended side effect of moving those upper notes to the RH is that those RH accents are pretty close to the LH part. You can increase the distance between the staves in these areas (there's a few other spots like this too actually, like m157-162).
  • m118 LH: I think it would be easier if the D was under the top G, so the LH alternates between the low G alone, and D-G on top. It feels a bit more comfortable to play, and won't affect how it sounds really.
  • m99, 201, 207 LH: Maybe some courtesy A naturals for these spots? You don't have to include them if you don't think they're necessary, but they may be helpful.
  • m226: Might make more sense for this note to fill the entire measure; the usual way to do this in 9/8 is a dotted half tied to a dotted quarter, with the fermata over the dotted quarter.

Fantastic Ike


Static